Select Page

Home » Discover Rackham » Student Spotlights

Student Spotlights

Student Spotlight: Olga Shalev

Olga earned her bachelor's and master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science from the Technion, Israeli Institute of Technology. She served as a lieutenant in the Israeli navy and after graduation worked for seven years as the chief engineer at...

Student Spotlight: Frank Kwarcinski

Frank’s research involves using small molecule compounds to answer essential questions about cell growth and proliferation. More specifically, he studies the development of kinase inhibitors as both a potential cancer therapeutic and a probe to better describe...

Student Spotlight: Shweta Ramdas

Shweta is from India and completed her undergraduate degree in nearby Singapore. “It was close to home and a great school for science. I knew I wanted to go to grad school and study genetics, and I was reading papers from researchers at Michigan. It made sense to come...

Student Spotlight: Colin Zarzycki

Colin has been interested in hurricanes and cyclones since he was a kid. When it came time for graduate school, he knew he wanted to study weather and cyclones. While his department represents only one third of the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences program, this...

Student Spotlight: Jacki Antonovich

As we walk through the building to find a quiet place to talk, Jackie reminisces about time spent in Rackham as a part of the Summer Institute before officially beginning her graduate studies. “I spent a lot of time on the fourth floor that summer. This building is so...

Student Spotlight: Sherri Cook

Sherri’s dissertation examines the fields of waste management and water management, using environmental biotechnology models to answer important questions. Specifically, one aspect of her research focuses on how to best dispose of unused pharmaceuticals, examining the...

Student Spotlight: Yilan Zhang

“U.S. bridges were designed to serve for 50 years. Most of them were built 50-60 years ago.” Uh oh. Since many of the bridges are passing their useable service time, Yilan’s research on how we can effectively monitor the structural health of bridges is particularly...

Student Spotlight: Lauren Reed

Lauren’s dissertation focuses on “digital dating abuse,” which is repeated patterns of abusive dating behaviors using the Internet or cell phones. She is looking specifically at the gender dynamics of behaviors, motivations, experiences and consequences of digital...

Student Spotlight: Brett Baker

Brett is a non-traditional student, returning for a Ph.D. after working as a microbiology lab manager at UC Berkeley for almost 10 years. “Re-entry into the classroom was a challenge, to say the least. There are great resources and technology close at hand at U-M that...

Grad Theories

Artem’s post got me thinking about the many truths of grad school. There are, I believe, a few more that he might have missed in favour of thinking about the Bahamas. So I decided to be rebellious and do everything my Ph.D. education is supposed to teach me not to...